Okay guys, here is a preamble to my final testing that should be taking place over the next several weeks.

First off, I have modified the Aerovane Jig from Firenock and made some corrections that will put the jig into the 30th century. It should be more accurate than any other jig on the planet once the mods are complete, and it will be able to fletch the 60 x 120 degree spacing without having to move the shaft like you do now with the current setup. The Bitz conversion is okay, but we have found that the indexing on the Bitz can be off as much as 10 degrees total. But if you fletch each shaft exactly the same, you should get very acceptable results, which is the key.

I have had the chance to speak with Jon Henry here on the forum as he is extremely knowledgeable in the areas of the testing that needs to be done to and is my "go to" guy if I need to bounce a query off someone. If you see him post, take note, there will have been some serious research or at least serious thought taken place before his fingers hits the keyboard.

We can get these shafts to shoot. Yes, they are fairly decent by most peoples standards and if someone bought a TAC and NEVER did any of the things I am going to outline, they would have one of the more accurate modern crossbows on the market regardless. So don't think you have to go through all this to get your TAC to shoot, you don't. This is sort of like the reloader who could go out and buy factory ammo and get plenty good enough results. But he doesn't want to settle for "good enough". He wants to squeeze ALL the accuracy he can out of that weapon. And so do we. So that is what this is all about.

Moving forward. Wait till you can buy the bare shafts only if you want to keep from doing hours of work that is time consuming and tedious. That is stripping the fletchings. You have to cut them off, and scrape the shaft till you get all the glue off and then thoroughly clean the shaft. Trust me on this one, wait till you can get bare shafts. Stripping is a pain and you can damage the shaft if you are not careful.

Next you will need to break the nock loose and remove it. You can do it several ways, but I would recommend putting the nock in a vice and gently twist the shaft till it pops loose. That is easiest for me. You can also get some non-slip material that you might put in drawers or cabinets to keep things from moving around and use that to grip the nock with pliers and remove it by holding and twisting till you pop the nock loose that way. Any way you do it, just get the nock out and you will be ready for the next step.

Now this step is not 100% necessary, but I think it would help if you are going to want to line your broadheads up the same way each time. It is removal of the insert. Put the 85 grain field point in the insert. Take a propane torch, and gently heat the field point a little at a time, and do not allow any direct heat or flame to touch the carbon as you will ruin the shaft that way. Just run the tip through the flame back and forth till you warm the glue, then pull the insert out by gripping the field tip with pliers and removing both at the same time. Just make sure you do not get the shaft hot or you will have to throw it away. Go slowly and like I said, if you do not want to do this part, don't. It's not something that will really need to be done to get incredible accuracy anyway.

Now you will have to have access to a carbon arrow tester do move on to this next step. I happen to have a RAM QC Carbon Arrow Tester with a 1.94 pound weight that will show spine deflection on any standard shaft. You cannot go by any chart on the TAC shafts because there is no standard way to measure these shafts due to their short length. But that does not matter. So long as you can get a reading, you will want to measure the deflection and make a mark on one side (high or low) next to the dial indicator to show the high or low side of the shaft. You need to pick which you plan to mark and mark all of them the same, either high or low reading.

Now you will need to transfer that mark to the rear of the shaft, and one way to do this is to lay a marker down flat on a very flat surface. Now lay the shaft on the surface and roll the shaft till your markers point will be dead center of the mark you made. Keep the shaft from moving, and move the marker to the nock end of the shaft and make your new mark there.

Now you will need to fletch the shaft so that the mark is either up or down, or in the exact same place when you place the arrow in the bow. I prefer up so I can see and know the shaft is flexing toward gravity, but that is just me. I like to think of gravity and an invisible helping hand that helps push down on the shaft as it is trying to push up. Now you can glue the factory nock back in place so again that your shaft is indexed up or however you choose. Now there is a much better alternative to the factory nocks. The problem with the factory nocks is the mold they are using to make these nocks is 25 years old and not precise at all. The plastic is also very poor as far as memory. Once you have nocked the nock a dozen times, it will not spring back like it did the first time, and after a time your arrows will tend to get loose on the string due to the low memory. I suggest the only alternative which happens to be one of the best nocks on the planet and that is the Firenock "D" nock, made specifically for the TAC shafts. I worked with Dorge in their creation and was his product tester for this nock. His last version is very precise, fits very tight in the shaft so you will not have to glue it in place, and you can put the lighted circuit in it if you decide you want to be able to track these lasers we call arrows going down range. You will have to install the Extreme Shock End Caps so that the battery and circuit will not fly out of the nock. The energy generated by the TAC requires the ESEC. But I would at least spend the money for his nocks if you really want to get the most out of the TAC.

Now you will have a set of arrows that will all behave like a group. It will not matter which arrow you pick out of the quiver, they will all shoot very close to the same POI. You will have some very slight deviations from time to time that might show up in extreme long rang shooting such as 100 yards, but over all you will be slapping shafts at 50-60 yards and you had better not shoot at the same dot at less distances than that unless you like wasting arrows.

I'll let Jon chime in here and fill in the voids I have left in my procedure. I have been distracted a number of time during the writing of this and had to get my thought train back on track several times so I know I did not get everything I really wanted to in this post. But it is the basic meat of what we are doing to get these shafts to shoot the absolute best out of this awesome shooting machine. And don't forget to start with the TAC and make sure it is shooting bullet holes and is square to the rail and get that right first, then move to the shafts and get them right. From there, you will just have a hard time wiping the grin off your face when you get to the range and shoot that 1-2" 100 yard group off the bench.

More later and hopefully Jon and Konrad can join in here and fill in the blanks I've left.

Okay, time to back up a bit. I have taken a number inserts out and turned them to align them, but this is a no-go for the TAC shafts. They have a two piece insert the likes I have not seen before. Also, the inside of the TAC shaft has been milled out to accept this insert. It is .300 ID on the nock end, but the insert end has been modified to accept the insert. So this is a strange beast. So forget the part above about taking the insert out and realigning it. You cannot do that on this type of shaft with this unique insert like you can on a standard shaft. I had not gotten so far as to start broadhead testing and alignment, but I have on many other shafts with quite a variety of results. So everything else stands, but forget doing anything different with these inserts. You will damage the shaft getting it out and you cannot replace it with any standard components from other companies.

It makes one wonder if the TAC shaft is indeed a tapered (larger diameter on the point end, smaller diameter on the nock end or visa versa) or a “barreled” shaft (fatter in the middle than on either end). This could lead to different dimensions on nock and insert ends of the shaft depending on where the shaft is trimmed.

Please remember, the taper and/or barrel could be internal.

Sounds like an Easton Technical solution.

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“The rifle itself has no moral stature, since it has no will of its own. Naturally, it may be used by evil men for evil purposes, but there are more good men than evil, and while the latter can not be persuaded to the path of righteousness by propaganda, they can certainly be corrected by good men with rifles.”

My TAC shaft "expert" who I sent several damaged shafts for him to dissect, has told me that they are indeed internally tapered. I had not taken one apart till last night, and although I did not measure the throat after the insert was out, it appeared to be much thicker just past where the insert had be milled out. I'll cut the area where the insert was out so I can get a good measurement later and post that info.

Has anyone attempted to see if a TAC-15 Arrow when squeezed end-to-end** between something like a bar clamp, if the Arrow bends in the same direction as indicated from Spine Testing?

** I am wondering if squeezing an Arrow end-to-end to see which way it bends would better simulate the force applied to the arrow shaft when it is shot from a crossbow. The string applying initial force of 155#s to the knock-end against the mass of the arrow-head/insert, along with the front half of the shaft providing initial resiting force, which is all over with in something less than 3.55 milliseconds.

Interesting question...I would want to be watching from a remote camera though.

Have you ever seen a 250 pound chicken that writes?

__________________
“The rifle itself has no moral stature, since it has no will of its own. Naturally, it may be used by evil men for evil purposes, but there are more good men than evil, and while the latter can not be persuaded to the path of righteousness by propaganda, they can certainly be corrected by good men with rifles.”